DesNew: Utah's economy strong in first half

Deseret Morning News, Thursday, July 27, 2006

Utah's economy strong in first half
Wells Fargo economist predicts modest slowing during latter 2006

By Jenifer K. Nii
Deseret Morning News

Utah's economy in the first half of 2006 was "possibly the strongest economy we've ever had," a Wells Fargo economist said Wednesday.

Deseret Morning News graphicAnd, while Wells predicts some modest slowing during the latter part of the year, 2006 could still outpace 2005, according to Kelly K. Matthews, executive vice president and economist for Wells Fargo, which released its midyear report Wednesday.
"Just possibly, it's the strongest economy we've had, that I'm aware of," Matthews said. "While we are clearly going to have some slowing, the extent of that slowdown, at least for the second half of this year, is going to be very moderate. That being the case, it's possible that 2006, when we're all said and done, will be as good, if not better, than 2005 was."

Matthews used local data on population, employment, housing, retail sales and interest rates in his report — which seem to be fitting together rather nicely at the moment.

Using numbers from the Utah Population Estimates Committee, Matthews projects that Utah's population growth will reach 79,000 this year, which is about the same as last year and well ahead of the 1999-2004 period, when population gains averaged 54,600.

Those people will be looking for places to live, work and spend their money — which Utah should be able to accommodate, Matthews said.

"If we combine the number of people we have and the growth in jobs and how much housing is being constructed and how much money is being spent, we don't have any excesses or major problem areas appearing," Matthews said. "I've gone back and looked historically, and if we have the amount of jobs being created and the amount of people, we can absorb the amount of homes being built."

Single-family home building permits by year's end, projected to total 20,330, are expected to run about level to 2005's, while current mortgage rates of 6.8 percent are expected to end the year a bit higher than last year's 6.1 percent year-end figure, according to the Wells report.
Meanwhile, home price appreciation soared to 38.4 percent in St. George for the first quarter and was estimated between 15 percent and 20 percent statewide, Matthews reported. Though the St. George rates are not sustainable over the long term, Matthews said, "at least through the second half of this year, Utah can continue to pretty much maintain the same extraordinarily strong pace without getting into any major stresses and strains."

Utah's job growth for the second half of the year is projected to be 4.5 percent, the Wells report stated, trailing slightly the pace set during the 4.7 percent set in the first six months but dusting the 1.4 percent national average reported for June 2006. The state's projected unemployment rate for the latter half of the year is 3.4 percent, compared to June's 3.1 percent.
Taxable retail sales are forecast to be up 9 percent by year's end, according to the Wells report. The first half of 2006 saw 11 percent growth, making for a 10 percent average for the year. Wells estimated a 5 percent increase in retail spending per job over last year, to $20,300 in 2006, which is weighed against a 4.2 percent average monthly rate increase estimated for 2006.
"That suggests that there probably isn't much savings going on," Matthews said. "But, at the moment, it would seem to be somewhat in equilibrium. We're not spending that much more than we have."

Assuming that crude oil prices remain stable and that inflation and interest rates are kept under control, and barring geopolitical or natural disasters, Matthews said 2007 should be another good year.

"Obviously, things won't be as good in Utah as they are right now, but it will be a pretty darn good economic environment," he said. "Interest rates and the energy environment really become the two critical factors. If they behave themselves, I feel pretty good about 2007."

E-mail: jnii@desnews.com
© 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company

AdSense competitor

I chuckled this morning as I saw the following ad in my GMail:


I wonder how long until Google figures out that some of the ads they are posting are for their competitors? You go JumpFly.com! Good luck in sticking it to the man!

DesNews: Venture capitalists plug Utah industry

click here to link to article
Deseret Morning News, Saturday, July 08, 2006
Venture capitalists plug Utah industry
By Dave Anderton
Deseret Morning News

Utah's venture capital community is light years ahead of states such as Florida and Tennessee but could improve in commercializing more ideas from its universities, according to Mark Heesen, president of the Virginia-based National Venture Capital Asso- ciation.

Heesen was in Salt Lake City Friday to join with Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and other venture capitalists plugging the state's growing venture capital industry.

In 2005, Utah captured $248 million in venture capital money, a 28 percent rise from $193 million raised in 2004, according to the MoneyTree survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Venture capital money is money invested into private companies, usually at early stages of growth.

Huntsman said the state is on track to reach the $300 million mark. Still, Heesen said Utah could compete better by creating a closer relationship between its VC firms and universities.

"I don't know how many companies that you have taken out of the university setting, but I would assume that it is pretty low compared to some other states," Heesen said. "And it's not simply your public universities, but also your private universities in trying to have an understanding of moving ideas out of the academic setting."

Jack Brittain, vice president of the University of Utah's technology venture development, said the U., over the past 10 years, has created about 3.5 companies on average annually. However, in the past fiscal year ended June 30, roughly 20 companies were created.

In the past, Brittain said, the university simply "sold off" its technology ideas, something known as "tech transfer."

"That was very much, 'throw it over the wall,' " Brittain said. "Now we really focus on getting commercialized and creating jobs. We're making companies."

In addition to commercializing more ideas, Blake Modersitzki, partner at UV Partners, said Utah should be more active in pushing science, technology and biology at both the high school and college levels.

E-mail: danderton@desnews.com
© 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company

SLTrib: Utah proves magnet for venture capital

click here to link to article in the Salt Lake Tribun

Article Last Updated: 7/08/2006 02:52 AM

Utah proves magnet for venture capital
Edge: A business-friendly stance is cited as a factor giving the state an advantage

By Bob Mims
The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake Tribune

Mark Heesen listened Friday as preceding speakers talked about the need to lure more venture capital to Utah's burgeoning technology sector.

Then the president of the National Venture Capital Association told leading state entrepreneurs they already had most of what today's investors yearn for - smart, innovative workers, and a cultural and recreational environment that's hard to beat.

"There are some very positive things we're seeing in Utah," Heesen said at an afternoon venture capital seminar at the Governor's Mansion. "Quality of life is an extremely important aspect" for a strong entrepreneurial base."

He compared a relatively smooth commute from a downtown Salt Lake City office to an affordable, spacious home to a trip of hours out of San Francisco to a "two-bedroom, $1 million" home in the suburbs.

"The people who are here want to stay here," Heesen said. "[That is] a very important distinction."

He also praised the Legislature's pro-business stance - especially its recent creation of a $100 million "Fund of Funds" designed to attract both dollars and venture capital firms to Utah.

But in comments echoed by other speakers Friday, Heesen cautioned that the state must continue to build its venture capital infrastructure to include so-called "C " and "D" series fund-raising, which takes promising startups through expansion to profitability.

Dinesh Patel, co-founder of vSpring Capital, agreed that capital for those later stages of corporate development are still lacking, though he was optimistic time - and "a very vibrant" investment climate in Utah - could close that gap.

In 2005 alone, Patel said, deal trackers identified $417 million invested in 84 Utah transactions that ultimately will produce more than 20,000 jobs. (Other VC estimates range both lower and higher).

In earlier opening remarks, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. also saw success in his efforts to help make Utah "attractive to capital," vowing that, "We in state government are doing everything we can to create an environment of [economic] growth."

Through incentives and successful entrepreneurship, Utah must become "a safe haven" for investors. Further, Huntsman said, a capital-friendly environment depends on tax reform, proactive investment in research commercialization at the state's public universities, and promoting the state's natural beauty and tourism opportunities.

bmims@sltrib.com

Investing in Utah

* Venture capital is money invested in private companies with the goal of taking a business public (trading stocks), or having it acquired.

* Utah ranks 15th nationally for venture capital invested, according to thePriceWaterhouse Coopers-Thomson MoneyTree Survey.

* In 2005, the MoneyTree Survey put Utah venture capital investments at $248 million, up 32 percent from 2004. (Other estimates range as high as $447 million in VC for the state last year).

The Meteoric Rise of WorldVitalRecords.com

Here is another Alexa chart of interest. This is the Daily Traffic Rank Trend for yesterday, July 6, 2006. The Daily Traffic Rank Trend shows where a site ranks in page views compared to all other sites on the internet. Yahoo (#1), Google (#3), and eBay (#9) are all in the top 10 sites on the internet. This chart tracks and compares of all internet web sites.

This chart shows that after starting completely unranked, WorldVitalRecords.com has shot up to around 15,000. MyFamily.com is at around 3,000. FamiySearch.com is at around 9,000. And in a week WorldVitalRecords.com has had a meteoric rise all the way up to 15,000!


As we at WorldVitalRecords.com continue to add more content and more and more people use and talk about the site, our ranking will continue to climb. This is only the beginning.

WorldVitalRecords.com has gone viral!

According to the Alexa rankings on July 6th, 2006, the World Vital Records genealogy site(WorldVitalRecords.com) has gone viral!

The Daily Pageviews chart from Alexa shows the usage spike going from 0 on June 28th to 8 million page views per day on July 5th.

The Daily Reach Alexa chart shows the daily reach going from 0 to 40 million.

There was no historic daily traffic trend data until July 2nd. On July 2nd the raking is over 100,000. On July 5th, the daily traffic trend moved to between 22,000 and 20,000.

This is a serious usage spike!

From the analytics that we are tracking, most of this traffic is from the many genealogist bloggers that are now discussing WorldVitalRecords.com in their blogs. A big chunk of this traffic was generated from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter blog by Dick Eastman (http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2006/07/worldvitalrecor.html).

www.WorldVitalRecords.com is now live!

We were able to roll the content and feature set from our development server to the http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/ site.

This initial site has 3 vital record indexes to start with: Social Security Death Index, Maine Death Records, and Louisiana Slave Index. Total, these indexes represent about 77 million names. The "global search" page returns the results from each index listed in alphabetical order.

On the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) results page, the vital records for each person is displayed: Name, Birth Date, Death Date, Issuing State, residence at Death, and Social Security Number. There are also links to see 'Neighbors' which are people who died in the same zip code near the same time. There is a link to generate a SS5 letter and down load the GEDCOM file for this person.

As a demonstration of the web 2.0 technologies that we are implementing, there is a Google map of the location of the Death Residence. This map is zoomable and scrollable as well as being able to display both the road and geographic boundaries and satellite images. Clicking on the 'Hybrid' button super imposes the map data onto the satellite image. This is the first of many value added features that we are working on for improving the display of vital records.

RSSJAM is one of the best RSS clients that I have seen

Tyler Jensen of Provo Labs has come up with another great tool. He frequently comes develops powerful tools that are amazingly simple to use. He has done it again.

His latest creation http://www.rssjam.com/ is a very straight forward way compile, manage, and display your favorite RSS feeds.

I like the simple and clean display. This will help me find what I am looking for in the most optimized use of time.

Thanks Tyler!

Try it out at: www.rssjam.com